


a couple of dirty barstools and some ancient fools

by livingtheobsessedlife



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky barnes walks into a bar, Established Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Friends as therapists, M/M, Matchmaker Tony Stark, Walk Into A Bar, bar owners au, billionaire Tony stark quit everything and bought a bar with Steve bc why not, blind dates, there is no punchline only Sam Wilson.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23778688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife
Summary: Tony and Steve have owned The Tower bar for years now. Tony likes to consider himself a matchmaker, too, though they should really stick to their day jobs. Except only this once. Maybe.Bucky stumbles into his childhood best friend's bar and the punchline is- well, the punchline's Sam Wilson himself.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 108





	a couple of dirty barstools and some ancient fools

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up and the only thought in my head was stevetony established relationship bar owners au... it now exists.

From 3 p.m until 2 a.m The Tower is one of the most popular bars in Manhattan. Socialites and blue collar workers alike flock to the homey atmosphere after a long day of work and monotony and into the welcoming and well-tended arms of Steve and Tony Stark. 

Before 3 o’clock, however, The Tower is a completely different place. Not a soul can be found inside except the owners, a long-married couple that wordlessly trade shifts tending bar and working in the back. It’s their life, the life they chose together, and they wouldn’t trade it for the whole world. Their other bartenders don’t show up until the rush starts anyway. 

Maybe every once in awhile some product of the layoffs will find their lonesome way into the infamous hotspot, stumbling back out again when they realize the shock of the place in the pure light of day. It’s usually just the two of them, bussing tables and doing paperwork. It’s become their life’s work. 

Years before Tony had tendered his resignation from the big business industry and he and Steve had bought their quaint bar and got to work. They never anticipated the success that their little institution has brought them. They really couldn’t care all that much less. 

“Did you order the lettuce, Tony?” Steve’ll distractedly call out to the back, every two weeks like clock work. 

Tony will stick his head out from the office, rolling his eyes, “Yes I did, sweetheart. The beets, buns, and rum, too. You think I’m missing something?”

Steve just grins, “No,” He’ll say, wringing out the wash cloth as he moves on to the next table, “Just checking.”

They'll banter and play off one another while they work, and they perfectly well can do so without worrying about being bothered because before 3 p.m, that destined time, they have the whole place to themselves.

Steve’s got his hands slung loosely around Tony’s hips, a laugh suspended on their shared breath like a gymnast on a tightrope, when the bell on the front door dings. Neither of them suspect it. They hardly even notice. 

“Now is that really sanitary?” A voice breaks into their private moment, and Steve turns completely around, pulling himself out of Tony’s grasp with a smile.

“Buck, oh my god!” He exclaims, “What are you doing here? Come on in!”

“Thanks, Stevie,” Bucky says as he hulls himself atop a barstool, “Was kinda worried you’d see my sorry ass and want nothing to do with it.”

Steve’s almost offended by that. Mostly just makes him sad.

“That’s ridiculous!” Steve says, leaning forward against his side of the bar as Bucky picks at a hangnail, “Have you met Tony?”

Tony’s hand never quite removed itself from Steve’s hip, cupping the bone gently as his chin found home in the crook of Steve’s neck from behind, the perfect angle to peer over his husband and onto this old face. 

“I’ve seen him around,” Bucky says honestly as Tony offers up an earnest smile, “Your reputation precedes you, Stark.”

“Well, I better hope so. Don’t want all those things I did to be for nothing, huh?”

He’d almost sound serious if he didn’t look so ridiculously happy hanging off of Steve’s shoulder.

“What can we do for you, Buck?” Steve asks

“Was hoping I could get a drink, Stevie. This is a bar, isn’t it?”

Steve nods, smiles warmly, “I know what you need. Hold on,” Steve steps out of Tony’s grasp and into the back. He comes back four minutes later holding a steaming mug with the tag from a tea bag hanging over the side. The mug has the logo of the bar pasted on the front, the slogan scrawled beneath it. There are thirty identical mugs to it in the back, “Here ya go, Buck.”

Bucky stares at it like Steve had just pulled the mug out of his ass and handed it to him, “You know when I said I wanted a drink, this is not what I meant. You never were quite right in the head, Rogers.”

“Yeah?” Steve says, leaning back into Tony again. He knows Bucky doesn’t mean a word of what he says, it’s just how they are together, “Aren’t you the one in a bar before noon?”

Bucky doesn’t have a retort. 

“Drink the tea, Barnes. It’s good for you.”

Steve and Bucky are old friends. No, it’s more than old friends, they’re Old Friends with capital letters. They spent their childhoods making blood pacts and pinky promises, keeping each other out of trouble and making sure they stay in it together. They were inseparable back then, when Steve was scrawny susceptible to fights and Bucky thought anything with a cuss word in it was hilarious. Steve’s mom used to call them The Terrible Two before she passed, and after she was gone, Mrs Barnes basically took Steve in as one of her own. 

Then college came around and they kinda lost track of each other. 

They both went into the military, but got split into vastly different division, split up across the globe. They haven’t seen each other in years, but nothing feels different as the steam wraps itself around Bucky’s cheeks. 

They used drink tea in the Barnes’ kitchen late at night on the nights when things got tough for Steve, when he was struck by nightmares full of ghosts and things of his past, of an opaque face and a mountainful of regrets. Bucky would dunk mint tea bags into two mugs and wrap scrawny Steve in one of his mom’s afghans and they’d just stare at each other in the moonlight with the blinking kitchen light overtop them. Eventually, Steve would fall asleep. 

Steve isn’t scrawny anymore, and Bucky doesn’t have any of his mom’s old afghans (his sister got all of them in the will), but it doesn’t feel like anything’s changed a lick. They’re still Steve and Bucky, the Terrible Two, even thirty years later. 

Tony presses a kiss to Steve’s temple, “I’m gonna give you two some space,” Then to Bucky, “It was nice meeting you, Barnes. Have fun drinking.” He disappears behind the red curtain that separates the offices from the bar, leaving Steve to itch at Bucky’s troubles like a therapist (or more accurately, like a really old friend).

The mug’s steam envelopes Bucky’s face ignorantly as he glares at Steve. Steve, unperturbed, leans forward against the bar, nesting his chin in the place where his hands meet, ”So,” He says after a moment, “You gonna tell me what’s got you finding your way into a dingy bar before noon on a weekday, Buck? Or am i going to have to work to get it out of you?”

Bucky continues to glare, but his fingers tug at the tea bag anxiously, “In my defense, I work a night job, so this is basically the same as coming in at midnight for me.”

“I wish it was,” Steve jokes, “Then maybe we would actually have a few patrons in here. Instead, I’m stuck with you. Come on, Buck, out with it.”

“Fine,” Bucky sighs, “It’s stupid really. Could’ve just been solved with a drink really, I’m telling you, but my boyfriend broke up with me. It’s for the best, he was an asshole really. I think he may have even been cheating on me with some chick from his gym, but it hurts anyway, y’know?”

Steve has this mutilated, pseudo-expression twisted about his face, a strange, vengeful combination of sympathy and anger, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows there’s more just waiting on the tip of Bucky’s tongue. He just has to wait it out. He’s always been rather patient. 

Bucky crosses his arms, “And you know what, Stevie?” He says, face growing redder, “It sucks. Why am I always attracted to the awful guys, huh? This isn’t the first time I’ve probably been cheated on and it’s definitely not the first time I’ve been broken up with. It’s dramatic of me to worry over this, I know, it just… it sucks, is all.”

There it is. Jackpot. 

Steve’s arches an eyebrow and pats Bucky’s forearm, “You’ve just got bad luck is all, Buck. You’ve always had a soft spot for troublemakers.”

It’s an obvious allusion to their own friendship and luckily manages to squeeze out the tiniest of grins from Bucky, whose hands wrap again around their mug of tea. 

“You’re one to talk,” Bucky laughs, eyes darting to the red curtain, “His reputation isn’t spotless, Stevie, but look at what y’all’ve got here. You turned a troublemaker into-into whatever this is.”

“I got lucky is all, Buck.”

Bucky slumps on the bar, eyes forlornly glued onto his mug of tea. Instead of talking, he dunks his tea bag in around in his drink a couple of time, an up-down motion that bridges the gap to everything he doesn’t want to say. He’s quiet after. Steve just watches, waits. 

“Remember when we were kids,” Steve says, voice soft and deliberate, “And you used to set me up with those dames? We’d go on the double dates,”

Bucky chuckles. Steve wins back a small smile, “What about ‘em?”

“Well, what if I set you up on a couple dates, Buck? What if I, you know, returned the favor?”

Bucky scrunches his nose up all tight, “Hate to break it to you, Stevie, But you don’t exactly have the best taste in guys.”

“Oh come on, like yours is any better.”

Bucky has to give him that. He isn’t the married, love-addled moron out of the two of them, “Okay,” He agrees, very slowly, “It couldn’t hurt to try, I guess.”

Steve brightens, “Fantastic! I’ll make some calls!”

The next time Bucky comes barging into the bar, it’s not even noon yet. Tony’s sweeping around the front tables. Steve’s down the street doing his daily rounds at the homeless shelter. Bucky comes in decidedly like a hurricane or maybe just a very angry ex-military and very emotional man. 

“Steve!” He shouts, no respect for the time of day, “Steve! I’ve got a bone to pick with you!”

To his credit, Tony very calmly tucks the broom against the wall, “Geez, Barnes, keep it down, will ya?”

“I’ve got a bone to pick with your boy, Stark.”

“What’d he do this time?”

“Well, nothing, really, i guess, but-“

“Then why are you bothering me!”

“But he set me up on one of the worst dates of my life and I wanna beat his ass for it!”

“Oh, come on,” Tony says, sidling begins the counter, eyes narrowed in disbelief, “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Oh yeah?” Bucky retorts, voice pitched high as he continues his post-date hysteria. He leans his weight against the edge of the bar and throws a leg over the nearest stool, “You ever have a date where they accidentally insult your way of living before you’ve even introduced yourself?”

“Actually,” Tony says, making a drink outside of Bucky’s line of vision, “I have. Ex-weapons dealer and all that. A couple times actually.”

“Alright, well, what about a date where not only did they change the location at the last minute, but they were rude to the waitstaff once we were there?”

“Daddy-issue socialite chicks live for that stuff try again.”

“She snuck out halfway through the date without letting me know.”

Tony grimaces, “Okay, yeah, that’s the worst. It’s happened a couple times to me, but I’ll agree with you, it doesn’t get much worse than that.”

“Dating just sucks, man,” Bucky admits, deflating onto the bar. He doesn’t normally open completely up to semi-estranged childhood friends’ husbands that he doesn’t know at all, but it’s something about being at the bar that makes Bucky feel like he’s at his therapist, he doesn’t mean to, really, “I’m over it already. I’ll just be lonely the rest of my life. I’m ready. It’s fine. Totally fine.”

“Okay, look,” Tony says, pushing the drink he’d been making across the counter to Bucky. It’s another cup of tea, “I don’t know you, like, at all, dude. You’re kinda completely Stevie’s territory, but he gave me instructions for if you came. He figured you’d either be upset or elated, and I’m gonna take this whole existential crisis thing to mean you’re upset, so here’s the tea. Now I’m supposed to let you vent or whatever, so just like go for it, I don’t know.”

Bucky takes one meaningful look at Tony Stark, a changed man because of the person Bucky had once called his best friend, and completely locks up.

“Isn’t this a bar? Why are you guys always giving me tea? What if I want a beer?”

Tony starts wiping down the counter outside of Bucky’s spot, “You’d have to ask that question to Stevie, Barnes. I just do as he says.”

He’s supposed to vent to this man, but all Bucky can do is sit and brood. 

“I’m just- nah, I can’t,” Bucky expels a sharp breath and clambers off his bar stool, “I’m going somewhere that actually serves me alcohol. I need a drink. See ya’ around, Stark.”

“Wait, Wait, no, Bucky, Wait!” Tony calls out, racing to meet Bucky on the other side of the bar, “I can’t let you leave. Steve would kill me if I let you walk out of here without talking it out or whatever he calls it. Let me just- let me try setting you up once, okay? Just the once, and then you can swear off all human contact for the rest of your life, I promise. Just give me a try?”

Bucky narrows his eyes skeptically.

“I mean, come on, when you really think about,” Tony continues, rambling as he so often does when he’s nervous, “You could probably blame most of your failures on Steve for setting them up. Gotta admit, I love the guy, but he might be the worst matchmaker on the planet.”

Bucky cracks a smile, “He really is a dumbass, isn’t he?”

“So is that a yes?”

Begrudgingly, Bucky nids, slumping back onto the barstool, “Alright,” He admits despondently, wrapping his hands around his hot tea, “I’ll give you one chance.”

Tony beams, “I know the perfect person.”

Turns out, Tony does not know the perfect person. 

In fact, Tony’s date turns out to be the biggest disaster of them all, and by the time Bucky’s date actually leaves, he’s furious. He gets to The Tower as fast as possible. 

“Tony Stark! You better bring your ass out here or I swear to god-“

“Jesus, Barnes,” Tony hisses, bursting out from the back office, “Cool it, will ya? There are actual customers here!”

“Yeah? Well, that perfect person you set me up with? A total shithead.”

Tony winces, “But-“

“No, no buts, you fucked this play up real bad. After a long, long list of never ending bad dates, that was the shiftiest of them all. So, thanks for that. Really.”

As if out of breath, he finally collapses onto a barstool.

Tony approaches him like a wild animal, a dish towel thrown over his shoulder like armor. Steve, dealing with a couple of drunk, female, and inappropriately flirty customers at the other end of the bar, nervously watches the situation unfold out of the corner of his eye. 

“Hey, Barnes?” Tony asks tentatively, “What do you say I get you a drink? A real one this time.”

Bucky scoffs, eyes dark, “You gonna get me a real drink or some pansy cup of tea again?”

Tony answers him by pulling out a long, clear bottle of tequila and pouring Bucky a shot. He slides it across the bar. Bucky downs it without a word. Tony pours another one.

The empty glass hits the wooden bar for the third time and Bucky scoffs into the bar, “Fuck you, Stark.” 

Tony pours him another drink. Bucky, with at least a few ounces of common sense, paces himself before downing the fourth drink, snacks on some pretzels so he doesn’t get too entirely smashed too quickly. It’s when he finally downs it that a stranger sits at the stool to his left, motions to Tony for his usual, and slumps against the bar. 

Bucky flips Tony off as he turns away, and the stranger lets out a laugh. 

“What?” Bucky grumbles, “You got a problem?”

“I don’t, but it looks like you have one with the bartender. What’d he do? Mess up your drink?”

Bucky rolls his eyes- who the hell does this guy think he is?!

“No,” Bucky insists, just barely tipping out of tipsy and into drunk, voice wavering with offense and liquor, “Stark fucked around with my dating life.”

The stranger snorts this time, and Bucky’s even more offended.

“Who the hell are you to judge?” Bucky snaps, and this guy seems to think it’s the funniest thing in the world.

“Look, I don’t mean to make you all defensive, sorry. It’s just- I know how much of an asshole the Starks can be sometimes. My name’s Sam, Sam Wilson.”

“Bucky Barnes,” He relays cautiously, reluctantly shakes Sam’s hand, eyes narrowed, “How do you know the Starks?”

“Let’s just say I come around here often.”

“One of the Starks become your therapist?”

Sam snorts as he takes a long pull from his beer, “More like I’ve become his.”

Bucky laughs into his drink, a hand wrapped around the sweating curve of the glass, “Let me guess- Stevie got you coming back?”

If Sam’s surprised, he doesn’t let on, just shrugs, “Kid’s a magnet for people who want to help.”

“I’ve known the guy since we were in grade school, trust me, I know the feeling of wanting to help that disaster.”

Bucky can feel Sam’s eyes following him as he laughs into his drink, a wry grin smothering the hint of blush at his cheeks.

“You’ve stuck around since you two were in grade school? That’s some friendship. How come I haven’t seen you around here before?”

“Well, I technically haven’t actually seen Steve in- five years probably. I was deployed for awhile, but uh,” Bucky glances at his sleeve subconsciously, “I’m back in the states for awhile now, and I work a night job when they need me, but uh, Steve’s been helping me reacclimate when he can.”

Sam stares, surrounded by this aura of unidentified surprise, and Bucky’s first thought is fantastic, he hadn’t noticed the arm until I pointed it out. Here comes the pity party, but Sam grins suddenly, and pulls up his own sleeve to reveal a tattoo. 

“Air Force,” He says with pride, “Pararescue.”

It’s not until much later when Bucky has told Sam half his life’s story and the only people still at The Tower are either absolutely trashed or wallowing alone in their drink, that Bucky realizes this might actually count as… as a date. And it’s equally as late when he looks up at Sam and realizes that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

Bucky takes a long drink of his iced tea, having voluntarily switched off of alcohol hours ago, and laughs at a joke Sam makes at Tony’s expense. Sam’s toe bumps against Bucky’s ankle under the bar.

“Ah, can it, you!” Tony berates, wiping a towel around a clean glass and pointing an accusatory finger between the two of them, “This here? Was a mistake. I’m never gonna hear the end of it. Tony sucks this and Tony’s a fool that. Outnumbered by a bunch of idiots.”

Sam retaliates with sarcasm as Steve presses a smiling kiss to the back of his glaring husband’s neck. 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, taps at his straw in his glass and takes in the way Sam leaps into the half-witted argument with a smile. Damn Stark. 

Tony catches Bucky’s eye while Steve and San switch the argument to that of some absurd daytime soap opera that Bucky is pretty positive he’s going to be forced to watch at some point if Sam and Steve’s apparent passions are anything to go by. But for now, Tony smiles knowingly at Bucky while Bucky memorizes Sam’s smile and the feeling of their legs brushing together, and Bucky pushes his glass forward while Tony gladly refills it with something abstinent and safe. And despite being completely sober, Bucky finds a warm feeling in his stomach and is glad he’s among friends. 

When The Tower finally closes, Tony wipes down the bar, Steve makes sure any drunk stragglers get safely into taxicabs, and Bucky walks Sam to the door. 

“So turns out Stark isn’t a complete idiot,” Bucky admits through half-grated teeth, “I did have a nice time talking to you.”

The shit-eating grin on Sam’s face is worth the comment, “We’ll don’t let him find out you said that or you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Oh trust me,” Bucky says, and leans in, feeling bold, “He’ll never find out.”

And there under the neon lights of The Tower’s window branding and the inching appearance of dawn on the horizon, Bucky leans in and presses a kiss to Sam’s lips. 

Somewhere in his periphery, Steve curses and drops garbage bag in front of the front stoop before slamming the door behind himself. Bucky valiantly hopes they’ll be able to ignore the way Steve’s muffled cheers for Tony can be heard from outside, but Sam pulls away, grinning nonetheless.

“I’ll see you around, Barnes.”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmura as Sam backs into a cab of his own, “See you around.”

And so Bucky is left standing outside a bar at dawn, alone beside a haphazard garbage bag, and staring off at the rest of New York City wondering how the hell he got lucky enough to have such a good night. 

“Hey, Buck, is he gone?” Steve breaks his silence, poking his head out the front of the building, “You can crash here tonight if you want.”

Bucky nods without turning around, remembering the way Sam’s fingers felt around his biceps, “I’d, uh, really appreciate that. Thanks.”

Steve waves a towel and goes back into the bar snickering. 

Bucky remains where he is for another few moments, frozen by the absurdity of a good date, a good night, a good feeling in his gut, and he’s rooted to the spot, the night rewinding in his head. 

He stares at the spot where Sam had stood just moments before and realizes that this is unlike anything he’s ever felt before. 

“Fuck.”

Bucky curses, then goes inside to help Steve clean up after the Friday night rush and go to sleep. 

/ / /

There was a part of Bucky that was sure they wouldn’t meet again. Good things don’t last. Not in this world, at least. Not in Bucky’s experience. 

But then Bucky shows up to The Tower again the next night and sure enough in the very same spot as the night before sits Sam Wilson nursing a lite beer and grinning like he’s waiting to tell a million secrets and none at all. He seems to light up when he spots Bucky. It doesn’t feel real. 

Bucky catches Tony’s eye again, feeling ridiculous himself as he presses an impulsive hand to Sam’s upper arm, but Tony’s smiling back and Steve’s got two heavy arms looped around Tony’s waist, both looking ridiculously happy. And for the first time in a very long time, Bucky considers that his life might actually have the potential for this kind of happiness. 

“Hey, barkeep, get me a drink, will ya?” Bucky hollers at the disgusting couple behind the bar as he takes his seat. 

Tony throws his towel at him, and Sam laughs as Bucky reaches over the counter and grabs one for himself. 

He owes the Stark-Rogers enough already. Might as well start a tab.


End file.
